Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1887-09-30
iii STORY TELLER.
His Painful Psculiarities Outlined by One
Who Has Manifestly Known Him aud
suffered.


Transcript
Yarnly was a ~raconteur; a story teller,
as we say in England, or liar, a. the pre-
cisiau would pat it. He was as full OF
stories ~ an egg full of meat, or a Ward
delegate is full of the spirit of the
occasion the night before the convention.
No man ever encountered Warmly without
receiving samples OF Yarnly's stOck-in-
trade, and no man ever parted from him
without mentally promising himself that
voluntarily no would never meet Warmly
again.
Yarnly was 4 pleasant fellow, \ very
pleasant fellow. l don't remember ever
to have seen him ont Of temper. And yet
il was 4 fearful strain on ones good nature
to meet Yarnly, and many a time | have
gone miles ont OF my way to escape him.
Ordinarily, however, Warmly wasn't so
bad. He was bound to tell you q story or
two. That was q matter Of course, and n
always braccd himself to pass through the
ordeal ~ manfully us possible. 1t was
when somebody had been so fool
ish as to venture upon the tell
ING of 4 story in Harnly's pres
ence that Yarnly came Out strong.
Hardly had the misguided person finished
his tale ere Warmly began to unload. 1t
was interesting, it was pathetic, to note
the gra latiOnS of despair which settled
upon the unfortunate man who had set
Warmly a-guing. lie would laugh good
naturally NJ Yarnly's opening story; the
next would evoke an idiOtic, CHASTITY
smile: this would be followed, after the
infiction Of number three, by a look OF
painful WEAKNESS, and the victim wGuid
pass rapidly from dependency to extreme
yexatiOn and utter despair, his face out
rivalling in acute anguish and undylng
hatred the yiSages OF the lost in Dant"'s
Inferno.
But Yaruly, nothing daunted, would
keep on, story following story in unendln%
succession. stories supposed To he new and
stories Enthusiastically old, until the poor
wretch who had been forced to listen,
sought refuge from his tormentOr in cow
ardly flight.
/ hated this STORYTELLING habit of Yarn
ly's, hated il with all the yenom that was
in me; aud yet | pitied him. | pltcd
because Of his inability to enjoy anOther's
relations. Let the story be ever so tn
Pertaining; no matter If II were fresh
from the mint OF the REALTORS vivid
imagination. Yarnly would show no
interest iu il whatever. lie wonld listen,
to he sure, but only 10 hear the pause which
warned him that his own opportun ty
had come; for Warmly could hear a pause
rs well rs the IriShman Of the authentic
narrative. II was all that Garnly could
hear or cared to hear when another was
speaking. But when the other voice ceas-
cal. he opened his ears as he opened his
mouth: he was unwilling to lose a syllable
of one of his own stories. His affection
grew with repetition, andi 1t was a pleasure
which made one almost forget his own
pain to witness the light which irradiated
Yarnly's features as he delivered himself
of one of his Oft-tOld tales.
And then Warmly was so easily reminded.
Let the occasion be what it would; utter
in his presence the most serious remark or
the most trivial commonplace, and in
stantly and inevitably was he reminded of
what he was pleased to nominate "a good
! thing" and the good thing you had to
take willingly and half a dozen more good
things" to keep it company.
1t got so in time that l could readily
pick out Yarnly's victims from the crowd
of passers-by in the street, or in agathering
of the people. When | saw a man with a
wOe-begOne expression in his face, and de-
m~oralizatiOn figured in his form and en-